Adapting or surviving….
I heard about the concept recently… I can’t remember where, but it stuck with me for a few weeks and I think it’s particularly relevant for the work we do in the gym.
When we train, we are stressing the body, and going through processes that make us more resilient. For example, you do a set of squats, the body says wow! You then grow more muscle tissue and mitochondria to make your legs and body stronger for the next time. This is healthy adaptation.
But what if those resources aren’t there? What if you stack stress on an already stressed system? Yes, you’ll be able to make the set of squats, but you’re no longer adapting… You’re surviving.
This model stems from Hans Selye’s General Adaptation Syndrome — he’s basically the grandfather of modern stress science. I learned it during my studies with Functional Diagnostic Nutrition, and it’s shaped the way I think about recovery ever since.
In simple terms, your body goes from green (fresh), to yellow (challenged and adapting), to red (overloaded). That yellow zone — where adaptation happens — is only possible when we’re sleeping well, eating enough, managing our stress, and creating space to recover.
If you skip that part? If you go from a hard workout to a stressful job to five or six hours of sleep and call that normal — you’re not in the yellow anymore. You’re red. And red is catabolic: your body is breaking down tissue, not building it. You might still be training, but you’re not actually improving.
*** Important caveat. Stress is determined by your perception! So you may work long hours, have family commitments, but still manage to stay in the yellow because you’re a resilient beast and you’ve adapted to this lifestyle.
So how do you know which zone you’re in?
Sure, you can use HRV, a WHOOP band, or a breath-hold test like CO₂ tolerance. But there are also old-school, intuitive ways:
- How motivated do you feel to train?
- How well are you sleeping?
- How’s your mood?
- Do you feel snappy, wired, tired but unable to rest?
That’s your nervous system talking. The sympathetic state is the “on” switch — fight or flight. The parasympathetic state is the “rest and digest” mode. One’s not better than the other — they’re yin and yang — but too much of one, and not enough of the other, is where problems start.
This is why recovery isn’t just the absence of training — it’s about shifting gears.
So you don’t need to do nothing. You just need to do the things that bring energy back into the body. For some this will be sleep. For others it’ll be a meditation. For those who came to our hike over the weekend, it’s getting into nature!
Train smart. Recover smarter.